They could at least admit to their mistakes and explain to us how they plan on preventing this kind of scenario from happening in the future... You know, the bare minimum in treating your player base decent. After all it's absolutely ridiculous that we have to keep resorting to these kind of measures to bring something to their attention.
They created Vanguards and Fast track as a go between them and the community, but at the moment they've deserted them just as much as easily as the rest of us.
No one asked them to comment on the account state. All that was asked is them admitting that someone made a mistake, and that we did not in fact witness the filming of a new Mission Impossible movie in the North Sea the other day. (Account state, we can (currently) still see via pings in comm ...)
P.S: Seriously? I can't "quote" the post, because I've not done enough other posts, and it does have a link in it?? That's hilarious, since I can't edit it out of the quote, either...
I'm not sure this was a mistake? What happened here is not something that happens every day or even occasionally. It's a first, in my experience, and needed a bit more of an investigation and decision from Ops than initially thought. This has now been done via the ticketing system, and I don't believe the discussion on this forum had any bearing on their decision.
Until otherwise stated, I expect Ops will uphold their policy on privacy regarding the status of tickets and related accounts.
Regardless of the path this incident took to get resolved, it has ultimately been resolved.
@Azhreia it is by far not a first, that nia ops claims accounts are valid, even if they'd need to borrow a Concord and build a runway on each end of their travel.
No were discussing the repeated instances of the failure of NIA ops to use logic and actual investigation. There has been many cases on strategic portals over the years that only require Google maps check to see aren't even slightly possible. Nearly ever case over these kind of instances, for both Res and Enl portals that have been so blatantly obviously impossible, but because 'computer says no' on spoof detection (see previous comment of GPS generators etc) they just close the case. It takes days or weeks to convince someone to actually go 'oh yeah sorry you need the starship enterprise' to do that. Reban, and just not feedback.
@Azhreia No one ASKED for a comment on the account status of said spoofer (I hope we can agree on that fact?)
We asked that NIA Ops speaks up, and explains why it wasn't banned in the first place, and what they plan on doing to not miss stuff like this, in future reports.
Not being based near the North sea I have not read the agreement about not linking through spoofed clearance.
Does the agreement cover removing the Blue links between Shetland and Iceland as they currently block restoration of the Green link between Fair Isle and Sule Skerry lighthouse ?
As I understand the agreement between ENL and RES around the North sea, it is to leave linklanes open if a portal takedown may have been spoofed. Both factions then are to wait until NIA Ops has declared if the portal was legal or not, or rather, either ban or not ban the suspect spoofer.
The link lanes are kept open make it easier for NIA Ops to restore the links, and to minimize the impact of the spoof. Also, in the case of more accessible portals, the faction affected can go and set up the links again.
The theory being that there will be less spoofing if both factions cooperate to minimize the effects of the spoof.
RES has of course honored this agreement by not linking until it was clear the player was not banned and there would be no restore. And no new links will be thrown now that NIA Ops has changed their mind.
I don't think NIA OPs will say anything about specific cases, like giving reasons for banning / not banning / un-banning. That's frustrating at times, but understandable. All we can hope for is a general statement on how they treat cases where they deem an action ban-worthy, but the account owner not responsible for the action. We don't know if that was the case here, but it would be good to know in general. My suggestion would be: 1. ban the account, 2. reset the spoofed portal/links/fields, 3. after confirming the account owner has regained control, un-ban the account.
What we could do ourselves, is refining any local agreements such that they explicitly cover such cases. So we won't have to discuss that in the middle of a heated situation, where people are upset, looking for a scapegoat, and not really in a constructive enough mood for agreeing on new rules. For example, in which cases we want to wait for NIA OPs to decide on a second ticket, how long we want to wait, and what should be the timing between NIA OPs rejecting a ticket, the ticket owner informing the other faction, and the lanes considered free to link.
This appears to be policy. We recently reported an Enl player for spoofing in the PNW, based on an impossible 1 hour 40 minute trip between two portals that are over 5 hours apart by car. I thought about the plane possibility and noted the nearest airfields in my report. No dice; the player is still merrily playing. In theory there's a remote possibility that he could have had access to... I guess two helicopters and a private plane.
In my more gloomy and cynical moments I entertain the possibility that Niantic is cautious about banning based on player reports after too many accidental bans based on presumption of guilt on the part of reporters. But I'd rather see a process that goes something like:
report probable spoof
investigate, including talking to the player who seems to have done the impossible
acting after that investigation
I also don't have any hard data on how many players have been banned for spoofing erroneously. I'm not sure it's actually a significant problem, although I'd recommend the procedure above in any case.
"You know, the bare minimum in treating your player base decent."
Decency.... requested by a person who is in a XF anti spoof chat over the North Sea, but once we disagree kicks a person of the opposite faction. This makes any talk between factions laughable and the word decency from your mouth tainted.
It also makes the future validity of the agreement between Enl and Res questionable. We had an agreement that was very black and white: No ban = game on. Ban = wait for restore.
Res respected the agreement, pretty black and white again, but Enl did not agree with the outcome so agents lied about the issue still being open at Niantic. So once Res started linking after ticket closure and no ban, drama came to this forum. Oh, and yes, then you did put in an appeal.
It is a bit difficult to digest perhaps, but Niantic is the referee on bans, and not Enl.
An agreement requires two parties to comply with the agreement. It is time to reconsider how trustworthy and decent agents of Enl are by misrepresenting what happened, being extremely offensive in this forum, kicking someone (me ;) ) in the XF chat and having tantrums over the outcomes of agreements not foreseen.
Except the issue was obviously not closed, as the account in question has since been banned and what fields and links were possible have been restored.
Kudos to @Doddieyrnastor@JbravoIS and the other Icelandic RES who spent last evening fixing their blockers (even though the result were not what I would have liked 🤣)
That the account since has been banned doesn't mean that the issue was "obviously not closed". The account was banned later, after the case was re-opened. At the time the links were made all tickets against the account were closed, and the account was not banned, making the links legit. Some people claimed there was another ticket at that time, but that was not true, that ticket was opened later.
So a big Thank You to NIA OPs for re-opening the case and undoing the deeds of a spoofer as far as still possible. And indeed a big Thank You to RES Iceland for volunteering to go out again and removing their own legit links. I hope a fair solution can be found for the owner of the account used for spoofing, if they really had nothing to do with that.
I also hope that we all increase our efforts to avoid personal attacks, inappropriate generalizations, logical fallacies and misrepresentations of what others wrote. It's easy to slip into these in the middle of a heated discussion, but they don't solve any problems, quite the opposite.
@Varmenni As one of the people that made the trip to Sule Skerry and originally put in the link between there and Fair Isle I certainly thank the Iceland resistance for doing the honourable thing and removing the blockers for that link. being restored. I am not quite sure why Niantic have not restored the link but that is another story which will hopefully be resolved.
Wow .... the hogwash and hypocrisy in this discussion is astonishing. The only thing more hypocritical would be BoJo giving marital advice.
The take down was a spoof - no doubt.
By the time some links were made the referee had made the decision that no foul play was detected. These are facts. But facts nowadays are apparently malleable. The 2nd correct appeal came later.
If the mayority of hypocrites would be really interested in improving the situation for the future, the discussion would have been around the question
"how can we improve any current agreement with the lessons learnt to improve understanding and minimise any friction?"
What would a casual player from the deep south gain and hence what would be their motive or inspiration?
Who would benefit from hacking the account of another player and making an obvious spoof on the most watched remote portal?
How can the true fair players work together with niantic to continously improve the game play experience for ALL players and ALL aspects of the game and not just to loudest voices?
That would have been sensible and dare I say meaningful. Instead ....
RES is spoofing because the account was blue! Remember wilmasnuff and co .... that was a blue account ... and how very blue it turned out to be
Spoofers have no faction! Remember 2016 ... I do ... turned out they ALL had ONE faction.
RES broke an agreement! I remember 2014 and being 'rewarded' for NOT breaking any agreement. Made absolutely no difference, the bullies still felt that 'punishment' had to be given.
Removing any player from a chat dedicated to resolving xfac issues because you do not agree with their opinion is pocket dictatorship. Leave on your own decision. Or stay silent. Or agree to disagree. Find a mediator. But once you have to remove any voice that is reasonably explaining a different opinion to yours, then you show your true colours.
If the illustruous community in here would truly be dedicated about fair play, then the it would be looking into and discussing not only obvious spoofing, but many other aspects of game play which must be considered "fair play" by some voices in here.
How to deal with continuous GPS locking on flygress portals?
How to deal with two-phone data-throttling to allow massive xmp stacking?
How to deal with cheated submissions?
How to deal with cheated remote portals and links that would not exist or be possible at time of the first visit?
What to believe of people “punishing” others for NOT breaking any agreements?
How to encourage fair play between adults and not result to petty portal picture trolling?
How to deal with banned spoofers who want to come back into the community without committment to never spoof again?
Just a small selection. Off course none of these will happen because they do not fit with the portrayed agenda by the loudest voices.
Ingress hypocrisy and drama in its finest form. BoJo will be very pleased.
After Niantic put the Utah Field in the newsletter, multiple spoof accounts have taken it down along with multiple durable portals since last night. The travel times were obviously impossible, even if there were a freeway directly between the portals, but somehow NIA was too dumb to do the most basic of sanity checking before allowing actions to go through.
Want to know why the player base has been on a steady decline? It's because NIA sucks so so so bad at taking meaningful steps to fix this problem.
Another spoofer in Washington -- thumper0085. Did a 45 hour drive/hike in 20 minutes; then a 2 hour drive in one hour. Spent the rest of the night messing around on the Olympic Peninsula. Multiple reports, no bans.
As long as the spoofer keeps his speed under the limit, NIA will do nothing. He can fly impossible tracks - if there is no "speed alert", he's completely safe. He can fly to you every day wherever you are, roam remote forest farms at 1am at 50km/h, destroy whatever he wants and level another backpack/portal submitter/whatever in a few days. We even reported spoofer which crossed Russian border in place where it is simply not possible. "We carefully reviewed it and cannot tell anything", and that's all folks, flying carpet still fully operational.
Comments
Okay. Very clear, thanks!
@Azhreia
They could at least admit to their mistakes and explain to us how they plan on preventing this kind of scenario from happening in the future... You know, the bare minimum in treating your player base decent. After all it's absolutely ridiculous that we have to keep resorting to these kind of measures to bring something to their attention.
They created Vanguards and Fast track as a go between them and the community, but at the moment they've deserted them just as much as easily as the rest of us.
@Azhreia
No one asked them to comment on the account state. All that was asked is them admitting that someone made a mistake, and that we did not in fact witness the filming of a new Mission Impossible movie in the North Sea the other day. (Account state, we can (currently) still see via pings in comm ...)
P.S: Seriously? I can't "quote" the post, because I've not done enough other posts, and it does have a link in it?? That's hilarious, since I can't edit it out of the quote, either...
I'm not sure this was a mistake? What happened here is not something that happens every day or even occasionally. It's a first, in my experience, and needed a bit more of an investigation and decision from Ops than initially thought. This has now been done via the ticketing system, and I don't believe the discussion on this forum had any bearing on their decision.
Until otherwise stated, I expect Ops will uphold their policy on privacy regarding the status of tickets and related accounts.
Regardless of the path this incident took to get resolved, it has ultimately been resolved.
@Azhreia it is by far not a first, that nia ops claims accounts are valid, even if they'd need to borrow a Concord and build a runway on each end of their travel.
We're not discussing other accounts though, are we?
No were discussing the repeated instances of the failure of NIA ops to use logic and actual investigation. There has been many cases on strategic portals over the years that only require Google maps check to see aren't even slightly possible. Nearly ever case over these kind of instances, for both Res and Enl portals that have been so blatantly obviously impossible, but because 'computer says no' on spoof detection (see previous comment of GPS generators etc) they just close the case. It takes days or weeks to convince someone to actually go 'oh yeah sorry you need the starship enterprise' to do that. Reban, and just not feedback.
@Azhreia No one ASKED for a comment on the account status of said spoofer (I hope we can agree on that fact?)
We asked that NIA Ops speaks up, and explains why it wasn't banned in the first place, and what they plan on doing to not miss stuff like this, in future reports.
Ah, in that case I'll take my leave. I can't really add anything more on that discussion than what I've said so far.
Not being based near the North sea I have not read the agreement about not linking through spoofed clearance.
Does the agreement cover removing the Blue links between Shetland and Iceland as they currently block restoration of the Green link between Fair Isle and Sule Skerry lighthouse ?
AFAIK NIA will not remove crossed links. It has to be done by agents. Preferably by the faction who linked. Let's see if it happens ;)
@laze
As I understand the agreement between ENL and RES around the North sea, it is to leave linklanes open if a portal takedown may have been spoofed. Both factions then are to wait until NIA Ops has declared if the portal was legal or not, or rather, either ban or not ban the suspect spoofer.
The link lanes are kept open make it easier for NIA Ops to restore the links, and to minimize the impact of the spoof. Also, in the case of more accessible portals, the faction affected can go and set up the links again.
The theory being that there will be less spoofing if both factions cooperate to minimize the effects of the spoof.
RES has of course honored this agreement by not linking until it was clear the player was not banned and there would be no restore. And no new links will be thrown now that NIA Ops has changed their mind.
I don't think NIA OPs will say anything about specific cases, like giving reasons for banning / not banning / un-banning. That's frustrating at times, but understandable. All we can hope for is a general statement on how they treat cases where they deem an action ban-worthy, but the account owner not responsible for the action. We don't know if that was the case here, but it would be good to know in general. My suggestion would be: 1. ban the account, 2. reset the spoofed portal/links/fields, 3. after confirming the account owner has regained control, un-ban the account.
What we could do ourselves, is refining any local agreements such that they explicitly cover such cases. So we won't have to discuss that in the middle of a heated situation, where people are upset, looking for a scapegoat, and not really in a constructive enough mood for agreeing on new rules. For example, in which cases we want to wait for NIA OPs to decide on a second ticket, how long we want to wait, and what should be the timing between NIA OPs rejecting a ticket, the ticket owner informing the other faction, and the lanes considered free to link.
This appears to be policy. We recently reported an Enl player for spoofing in the PNW, based on an impossible 1 hour 40 minute trip between two portals that are over 5 hours apart by car. I thought about the plane possibility and noted the nearest airfields in my report. No dice; the player is still merrily playing. In theory there's a remote possibility that he could have had access to... I guess two helicopters and a private plane.
In my more gloomy and cynical moments I entertain the possibility that Niantic is cautious about banning based on player reports after too many accidental bans based on presumption of guilt on the part of reporters. But I'd rather see a process that goes something like:
I also don't have any hard data on how many players have been banned for spoofing erroneously. I'm not sure it's actually a significant problem, although I'd recommend the procedure above in any case.
@Vashiru
"You know, the bare minimum in treating your player base decent."
Decency.... requested by a person who is in a XF anti spoof chat over the North Sea, but once we disagree kicks a person of the opposite faction. This makes any talk between factions laughable and the word decency from your mouth tainted.
It also makes the future validity of the agreement between Enl and Res questionable. We had an agreement that was very black and white: No ban = game on. Ban = wait for restore.
Res respected the agreement, pretty black and white again, but Enl did not agree with the outcome so agents lied about the issue still being open at Niantic. So once Res started linking after ticket closure and no ban, drama came to this forum. Oh, and yes, then you did put in an appeal.
It is a bit difficult to digest perhaps, but Niantic is the referee on bans, and not Enl.
An agreement requires two parties to comply with the agreement. It is time to reconsider how trustworthy and decent agents of Enl are by misrepresenting what happened, being extremely offensive in this forum, kicking someone (me ;) ) in the XF chat and having tantrums over the outcomes of agreements not foreseen.
@ChiisaiKuma
Except the issue was obviously not closed, as the account in question has since been banned and what fields and links were possible have been restored.
Kudos to @Doddieyrnastor @JbravoIS and the other Icelandic RES who spent last evening fixing their blockers (even though the result were not what I would have liked 🤣)
@Varmenni Untrue. Falacy, and you are well aware.
(edited tag, misclicked)
Uhm, @Varmenni answered you, not @Vashiru ?!? Are you sure you aren't just having a personal issue with Rene, as opposed to an actual issue?
Edit: Well, sure... (post I answered got edited)
@ChiisaiKuma
Care to elaborate on what part of my statement was untrue:
a) The account has been banned.
b) Portal has been restored.
c) Links and fields have been restored
d) My local Res should be commended for their honourable conduct.
All but one of these things can be easily verified, so I guess I'll have to retract my compliments :(
@Varmenni
That the account since has been banned doesn't mean that the issue was "obviously not closed". The account was banned later, after the case was re-opened. At the time the links were made all tickets against the account were closed, and the account was not banned, making the links legit. Some people claimed there was another ticket at that time, but that was not true, that ticket was opened later.
So a big Thank You to NIA OPs for re-opening the case and undoing the deeds of a spoofer as far as still possible. And indeed a big Thank You to RES Iceland for volunteering to go out again and removing their own legit links. I hope a fair solution can be found for the owner of the account used for spoofing, if they really had nothing to do with that.
I also hope that we all increase our efforts to avoid personal attacks, inappropriate generalizations, logical fallacies and misrepresentations of what others wrote. It's easy to slip into these in the middle of a heated discussion, but they don't solve any problems, quite the opposite.
@Varmenni As one of the people that made the trip to Sule Skerry and originally put in the link between there and Fair Isle I certainly thank the Iceland resistance for doing the honourable thing and removing the blockers for that link. being restored. I am not quite sure why Niantic have not restored the link but that is another story which will hopefully be resolved.
I'm actually very contempt with the anti spoof measures, the bans and the restores.
Sure, this time it seems there was a false positive judgement, understandable because the account seemed somewhat legit.
There's a lot of team effort in some of these strategic portals. So thanks alot Niantic, for fighting the spoofers.
It was marked as blocked at the time of restore. I haven't received any information yet for a second try.
Wow .... the hogwash and hypocrisy in this discussion is astonishing. The only thing more hypocritical would be BoJo giving marital advice.
The take down was a spoof - no doubt.
By the time some links were made the referee had made the decision that no foul play was detected. These are facts. But facts nowadays are apparently malleable. The 2nd correct appeal came later.
If the mayority of hypocrites would be really interested in improving the situation for the future, the discussion would have been around the question
"how can we improve any current agreement with the lessons learnt to improve understanding and minimise any friction?"
What would a casual player from the deep south gain and hence what would be their motive or inspiration?
Who would benefit from hacking the account of another player and making an obvious spoof on the most watched remote portal?
How can the true fair players work together with niantic to continously improve the game play experience for ALL players and ALL aspects of the game and not just to loudest voices?
That would have been sensible and dare I say meaningful. Instead ....
RES is spoofing because the account was blue! Remember wilmasnuff and co .... that was a blue account ... and how very blue it turned out to be
Spoofers have no faction! Remember 2016 ... I do ... turned out they ALL had ONE faction.
RES broke an agreement! I remember 2014 and being 'rewarded' for NOT breaking any agreement. Made absolutely no difference, the bullies still felt that 'punishment' had to be given.
Removing any player from a chat dedicated to resolving xfac issues because you do not agree with their opinion is pocket dictatorship. Leave on your own decision. Or stay silent. Or agree to disagree. Find a mediator. But once you have to remove any voice that is reasonably explaining a different opinion to yours, then you show your true colours.
If the illustruous community in here would truly be dedicated about fair play, then the it would be looking into and discussing not only obvious spoofing, but many other aspects of game play which must be considered "fair play" by some voices in here.
How to deal with continuous GPS locking on flygress portals?
How to deal with two-phone data-throttling to allow massive xmp stacking?
How to deal with cheated submissions?
How to deal with cheated remote portals and links that would not exist or be possible at time of the first visit?
What to believe of people “punishing” others for NOT breaking any agreements?
How to encourage fair play between adults and not result to petty portal picture trolling?
How to deal with banned spoofers who want to come back into the community without committment to never spoof again?
Just a small selection. Off course none of these will happen because they do not fit with the portrayed agenda by the loudest voices.
Ingress hypocrisy and drama in its finest form. BoJo will be very pleased.
After Niantic put the Utah Field in the newsletter, multiple spoof accounts have taken it down along with multiple durable portals since last night. The travel times were obviously impossible, even if there were a freeway directly between the portals, but somehow NIA was too dumb to do the most basic of sanity checking before allowing actions to go through.
Want to know why the player base has been on a steady decline? It's because NIA sucks so so so bad at taking meaningful steps to fix this problem.
Another spoofer in Washington -- thumper0085. Did a 45 hour drive/hike in 20 minutes; then a 2 hour drive in one hour. Spent the rest of the night messing around on the Olympic Peninsula. Multiple reports, no bans.
Won't deal with spoofers, but nuking families from the game. Great way to build trust, Niantic.
I'm guessing that's the "Nianitc Way".
OK, spoke too soon on Thumper. Thanks guys!
As long as the spoofer keeps his speed under the limit, NIA will do nothing. He can fly impossible tracks - if there is no "speed alert", he's completely safe. He can fly to you every day wherever you are, roam remote forest farms at 1am at 50km/h, destroy whatever he wants and level another backpack/portal submitter/whatever in a few days. We even reported spoofer which crossed Russian border in place where it is simply not possible. "We carefully reviewed it and cannot tell anything", and that's all folks, flying carpet still fully operational.